-The Times of India CHENNAI: Tribals of Kalrayan Hills and Jawad Hills in Vellore district are called 'silent Woodcutters' — and not for nothing. They are masters of art of tree felling. They can trek, cut trees with barely any noise and bear away the logs on their heads in a matter of hours. It is for this skill that they are in great demand among red sanders mafia, centred in the...

Eleven years ago, Muturkham forests, lying southeast of capital Ranchi, used to be the timber mafia’s busy workplace. No different from the rest of the state, which has lost 50% of forest cover to illegal logging in the last 10 years. Until 1999, when Muturkham’s jungle mafia met ‘Lady Tarzan’. Jamuna Tuddu, 32, a short and stout woman belonging to the Santahl tribe who had studied till Class X, led a...

If you want to understand why the Maoists grow stronger, watch frail Shyam Charan Kisku, 5, as he keeps hunger away by nibbling at a wild berry called Kendu on a hot April afternoon. Kisku and 40-odd children in this scraggly village of mud-and-thatch homes, 180km south-east of Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi, did not get their free lunch this day under the national mid-day meal scheme, the world’s largest cooked-meal programme. Kisku’s mother,...